About 40 minutes after my last posting the weather radar showed it clearing overhead (Boulder) and all the way to home (Ft. Collins).
Easy drive home on merely wet roads.
Squegee in the car cleared the 12" of mashed potatoes off the roof of the Jeep much better than my industrial snow brush would have.

When it was all said and done, we had a blanket layer of two feet here, with drifts well over three feet. What a nightmare to shovel !

More conventional prep - I've been learning about canteen cup cooking and purchased a couple of USGI cups and been tinkering with Esbit stoves for light weight and portability.



More knowledge is good. More experiments is even better.

The snow and ice replaced our nice Spring day yesterday too, while I was at work, planning to walk home. I checked the weather forecast before I left though. I dressed expecting a cold and wet walk, and also brought my rain gear, micro spikes, trekking pole and headlamp with me. I was fortunate that the rain early in the day had just turned to snow when I headed out, so it wasn't too slippery yet.

Today's lesson here will also be patience. The weather is miserable and the roads are a mess, but I have to go to work late this afternoon. Keeping en eye on the sky and forecast. Hopefully, we'll get a "CANCELLED" email from the big boss today if the weather doesn't improve. Otherwise, I'm leaving lots of extra time, taking my bigger GHB in case I get stuck, and I'll probably take the bus instead of going on foot or by bike. No point risking a broken hip if I don't have to.

Thanks to Les, I changed all the batteries in my GHB lights yesterday. Fresh batteries in my headlamp gave me more peace of mind on my dark and slippery walk home. I probably would have ended up with a frozen foot from a soaker without it. Thanks Les!

Oddly enough, I prepared by using a new headlamp to read in bed before nodding off (the stationary lights in the bedroom cast a very uncomfortable glare). I am getting familiar with my new zabralight 600 and its ways. I will be glad on some future dark and stormy night when its use and handling will be second nature.

Fortunately, I won't have to change the battery in this dude, just recharge it - a much better technique.....

The best stuff to use when the going gets tight are items with which you are familiar and that you know will function properly.

hikermor, you just flashed me back to a happy memory from years ago, when my husband got his first headlamp and used it to read in bed to he wouldn't disturb his light-sleeping girlfriend.

BPJ, you husband is a gentleman and a scholar and very fortunate besides....

It's getting very difficult to find a good "bedtime reading" headlamp. It seems like all the newer ones are designed to light up a path as long as a football field. Or they have so many blinky/flashy modes that it takes forever to cycle through those, making the headlamp useless to me.

My current reading headlamp, I hope it never breaks because they don't make it any more, is a "Petzl Tikkina 2". https://www.rei.com/product/793266/petzl-tikkina-2-led-headlamp# Older style with only two low power LEDs. About ten lumens on low, and lasts FOREVER on a set of batteries (several YEARS in my case!) And it only has high/low/off modes.

What good reading headlamp do others use? Eventually I will need to replace mine. I want low power, glare-free, and not all those stupid flashy modes.

I've found that putting a small piece of frosted Scotch Tape over the LEDs will give a much smoother and glare-free light pattern for reading.

Boy, are you in luck! I inventoried all my headlamps the other day and I have at least thirteen, not counting those of my wife and daughter. Most of these are low tech, like the Tikkina. They are of vast sentimental and historic value, but you can probably talk me out of them for about 90 bucks apiece......

Actually, my Zabralight operates very simply. Press the "On" button until it cycles to the level you desire and then release. At the appropriate level for reading in bed, I have something like 250 hours of light (or 5 hours at 1000 lumens, more or less) and over 500 hours at the lowest level. Recharging takes about five hours, if completely depleted.

I value simplicity highly but the versatility offered by new models of rechargeables is even better. The blinking, SOS, etc.modes are there but are not normally encountered in routine oeration.

Google search for "zabralight 600" turns up nothing for me except "zebralight", mostly the "sc600". But you've spelled it "zabralight" twice now, so I guess that's not a typo. Do you have a link to this headlamp?